The quality of water supplies in all areas of the United States and in other countries of the world is a major cause of concern. All sources of water, including ground water supplies, are becoming increasingly polluted. A variety of techniques are employed to purify such water so that it can be used for drinking, cooking and bathing purposes.
A purification chemical which is widely used in the United States is chlorine. As water supplies become increasingly polluted, increasing amounts of chlorine are added to those water supplies to purify the water. Chlorine and its derivatives are used by water companies because of the significant effectiveness of chlorine in killing micro-organisms. It is well known that chlorine attacks organic matter, making chlorine a potent bleaching agent. In fact, common household bleaches frequently are chlorine based.
Although chlorine is very effective in purifying water, it also is a very hazardous chemical. Even diluted chlorine must be used with care. As increasing amounts of chlorine are used in drinking water, the taste and odor of such drinking water are significantly adversely affected. As a result, many drinking water filter units currently are marketed for removing chlorine and other contaminants from the water at the point of delivery through the taps of homes and businesses. Such filters generally are relatively bulky in size; but usually they are located beneath the sink in a storage cabinet so that they are out of sight.
In most businesses and homes, chlorine usually is not removed from the primary water supply used throughout the home. This results in water delivered to the laundry room and to the bathroom containing relatively large amounts of chlorine. As a result, the water which is delivered to the bath tub, faucets and showers typically contains chlorine where it is inhaled and absorbed by the skin. As mentioned above, chlorine attacks organic matter. Thus, chlorine applied to the skin and hair chemically bonds with the protein present. Chlorine tends to make hair brittle and dry; and it tends to make sensitive skin dry, flaky and itchy.
To overcome this undesirable effect of chlorine in showers, shower dechlorinator filters, typically using granulated copper-zinc alloys, have been designed for attachment to the shower outlet between that outlet and the shower head. These filters are relatively small in size, typically five or six inches in length and two to four inches in diameter. They effectively and relatively unobtrusively function to dechlorinate shower water at the point of delivery. A patent which discloses such a shower filter is the United States patent to Underwood U.S. Pat. No. 5,008,011. This patent discloses a shower dechlorinator fabricated in the form of a short cylindrical housing. The housing is filled with granulated or randomly oriented fibrous material in the form of a copper-zinc metal alloy. Such alloys have been found to be highly effective in removing chlorine from water coming into contact with the alloy.
While filters of the type disclosed in the Underwood patent have been found to be effective in removing chlorine from water delivered to a shower, nothing comparable to these filters exists for a bath tub. A primary reason for the difficulty in providing a chlorine removal filter for a bath tub is that the water delivery spouts for bath tubs are not standardized. These spouts come in a large number of different configurations. For any filter to be placed in-line in a bath tub water delivery system, the filter must be installed in the water line in the wall or in the tub, behind the spout. As a result, the replacement of expended filter elements becomes difficult if not impossible. On the other hand, to adapt a filter to fit on the end of the wide variety of bath tub spouts which exist has not proved practical.
It is desirable to provide a chlorine removal filter for use in a bath tub which is simple in construction, which has a replaceable filter element, which is easy to use, and which is effective in eliminating chlorine from bath water.